Preaching the Gospel In Iraq

[Blue Tick]

Ok, I need someone to educate me. Prior to the U.S. invasion into Iraq were Christians allowed to preach the gospel and worship the God of the Bible freely? For some reason I have this idea in my mind that this true. Did Saddam allow Christians to preach the gospel, have Christian churches, and to meet openly.

 

[Blueridge Believer]

Ok, I need someone to educate me. Prior to the U.S. invasion into Iraq were Christians allowed to preach the gospel and worship the God of the Bible freely? For some reason I have this idea in my mind that this true. Did Saddam allow Christians to preach the gospel, have Christian churches, and to meet openly.

You had a presbyterian church in bagdad for 140 years untill GW liberated them. They may not have had absolute freedom but they were protected.

 

[Blue Tick]

You had a presbyterian church in bagdad for 140 years untill GW liberated them. They may not have had absolute freedom but they were protected.

Where can we verify this?

Thank you.

Anyway GW is a Methodist. He probably doesn't like Presbyterian theology... Just kidding.

Seriously, where can we verify that there was a Presbyterian
church in Iraq?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Check out this site:
http://merf.woh.gospelcom.net/merf/articles/iraqChurches.html
This information is dated, somewhat.
Search here for some old threads on this topic.
For example:
http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php?t=17626

Brothers, please do not turn this thread into another one of our periodic flame-wars.

Pax

Iraq: Kidnappers Murder Church Elder in Mosul
Dec. 4th, 2006

(Compass Direct News) -- Grieving Christians in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul completed three days of mourning for a murdered Presbyterian Church elder yesterday, only hours before another Iraqi clergyman was grabbed off the streets of Baghdad this morning.

The martyred churchman, identified only as 69-year-old Elder Munthir, had been kidnapped after leading worship services at the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Mosul on November 26. His body was found four days later.

He is the second Iraqi Christian clergyman to be murdered in Mosul within the past two months.

Under mounting terrorist threats targeting all of Mosul’s Christian community, local sources only spoke to Compass under conditions of strict anonymity.

According to eyewitnesses in Mosul, the Protestant church elder was cornered by two cars in front of his home at 11 a.m. as he returned from Sunday worship.

“One of the passengers had a pistol, and we saw them taking him and putting him into the trunk of the car,” an observer told Compass.

The captors contacted Elder Munthir’s family later that day, using his mobile telephone to confirm that they had kidnapped him. Initially demanding US$1 million in ransom, the kidnappers negotiated over the next three days with their captive’s relatives and friends.

According to one Mosul source who described the kidnappers’ conversations, “They said, ‘We have him, and we will kill him. We will cut his throat. We will take revenge for the Pope’s words. We will take revenge on all of you. We will kill all the Christians, and we will start with him.’”

The source said the kidnappers were “aggressive and mean,” but that “the people in these extreme Islamist groups do not represent true Islam.”

Although the kidnappers told a negotiator on Wednesday afternoon that the elder’s safe return was “nearly solved,” they then cut off communication with anyone.

On Thursday morning (November 30), the elder’s body was discovered thrown on a street in Mosul, killed by a single bullet to his head. Local forensic experts estimated the time of his death at 7 p.m. Wednesday evening (November 29).

Since 1974, Elder Munthir had served in various ministries of the Presbyterian Church in Iraq, which named him an elder in 2000. He was the sixth generation of his family to serve in Mosul’s Presbyterian Church, established in 1840 by 10 local Christian families.

Two months ago, he had been threatened by telephone that if he went to his church again he would be killed, local sources said.

“Nobody on earth can prevent me from going to my church,” he told the anonymous caller before he hung up. The next day, he went back to church and preached a sermon on God’s love.

“When he was kidnapped on Sunday, I was so terrified and troubled,” one member of Elder Munthir’s congregation said. “But then I opened my Bible to the book of Job, where the devil asked God to stop protecting Job. God allowed the devil to touch Job’s family, his money, his body and his health, but not his soul. I believe that Jesus died to protect [Munthir], so the devil couldn’t touch his soul.”

The day after Elder Munthis was buried, one Mosul Christian told Compass that many of the church leader’s friends felt it was too dangerous to attend his funeral.

“This is a very big tragedy for us,” the Christian source said. “It is really getting much worse here. We really need your prayers.”

Several more Christians have been reported kidnapped in Mosul since his abduction and murder.

“We will never just pray, ‘God, save us from this,’” one local Christian declared. “But we will pray also, ‘God, show us your will in this.’

“Munthir was an elder in our church, and he served God for 40 years. But God allowed him to be killed. If God wanted him to be alive, He was able to do it. It is not a matter of God’s protection.”

An electrical engineer by profession, Elder Munthir is survived by his wife and four children.

 

[rmwilliamsjr]

http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2003/002/5.50.html
http://www.christiansofiraq.com/nohelp.html
http://www.christiansofiraq.com/help.html
http://www.compassdirect.org/en/dis...length=long&idelement=4673&backpage=summaries

 

[VictorBravo]

I can verify that you could preach the Gospel in Iraq during the 1983-1984 period, because I worked there. I wasn't a believer then, but I had a Bible and often read it to my Iraqi friends. There were indeed several Presbyterian Churches in Baghdad, many Eastern Orthodox churches, and at least one fundamentalist independent Baptist church.

There was freedom of a sort, but there definitely were government spies listening to sermons to make sure there was no government-bashing. The houses of most foreigners were bugged so that put a damper on even private conversations.

Iraq under Sadaam in those days was quasi-secular, had the external appearance of freedom, yet the cloud of Sadaam hung low on everything. Whenever my Iraqi friends wanted to confide their true feelings about the great Republican revolution, they would bring me into a tractor cab to "test the engine" at max power. That was the only way they felt safe to say anything.

There was a lot of bad back then, and there is now too. I've got conflicted feelings about all this.

 

[Herald]

I'm not sure of the underlying reasons behind the question. Even the most godless of nations have had the gospel preached. Sometimes it cannot be done in absolute freedom. Vic's example is classic. Indoors...with no one else listening...this happens in many nations. Now...take the gospel message into the street and proclaim it loud for all to hear and you may get a different response.

Bruce, I appreciate your admonition not to turn this thread into a political hate-fest. I would be surprised if anyone has verifiable stats on the state of the gospel in Iraq. Whether is a secular Arab state or a fundamentalist regime (ala Iran), we should pray that the Lord of the harvest sends forth workers. Regardless how you stand on the current conflict, there are believers in Iraq right now. We may never know (until glory) about their faithful witness in this life. We can pray that the Lord would call many Iraqi's to faith in Christ.

fini

 

[Pergamum]

I find this thread interesting and challenging to many of my former assumptions...


Do you think the church in Iraqwill go through a dark period because Christianity will be equated with Westernism now? What new strategies and ways of entry and ministry are being tried.


I am praying for the saints in that region.